UNESCO, Where Culture Becomes Propaganda

About the Author

233 i a December 13, 1982 WESCO, WHERE CUL TURE BECOMES PROPAMNDA
INTRODUCTION It was supposed to be a conference dealing with
cultural issues. But the United Nations gathering in Mex ico City
last July turned into the kind of three-ring political circus that
is now the modus operandi of the United Nations Education, Science,
and Cultural Organization known as UNESCO.

At the conference, called Mondiacult '82, French Cultural Minister
J ack Lang, though not mentioning the United States by name,
blasted the U.S. with charges of "financial and intellectual
imperialismu1 in the export of American cultural products ranging
from films to fashions. The Arab nations attacked Israel for
invading Lebanon. Argentina attacked Britain for invading the
Falkland Islands. Mexico took a political potshot at the U.S. by
introducing a resolution to guarantee welfare rights for all
migrant workers, legal or illegal In sum, as in the case of the
Education an d Social Science components of UNESCO activities, the
Mexico City conference served mainly as an arena for communist and
Third World political machinations. There were no limits on the
speeches in the plenary sessions. Resolutions were delivered to
delegat ions only hours before the vote-=without translations.

American Ambassador to UNESCO, Jean Gerard, described the whole
conference as llprocedural chaos.Il A Dutch delegate was heard to
remark that UNESCO meant IIU never eat, sleep, or cogitate.I In the
mid st of the political pandemonium at Mondiacult, Soviet bloc and
Third World delegates predictably managed to attack the United
States, the Western nations, and multinational corporations for
Itcultural imperialism11 and Vieocolonialism. II Cuba submitted a
classic Moscow-brand resolution called IICulture and the Control of
1nformation.Il Co-sponsored by Madagascar, Angola, Vietnam,
Nicaragua, Grenada, and Sao Tom6 and Principe, the original version
of this resolution blamed cultural problems worldwide on We s tern
capitalism. It asserted that I 2 transnational corporations largely
control the cultural industries, distort the identity process of
the developing nations and affect the cultural and educational
context through their policy of indiscrimi nate consum p tion,
ignore the cultural values of the so-called Third World countries,
and promote behavior patterns alien to their legitimate traditions,
derive more than 50 percent of their income from foreign sales and
are basically concerned with profit and not wit h the cultural and
socio-economic advancement of the developing countries Attacks on
U.S. and Western culture and.the delivery of that Mexico City
marked the second World Conference on culture through modern
telecommunications technology are nothing new at UNESCO.

Cultural Policies. The first was in Venice in 1970 and the tone was
anti-capitalist and pro-socialist even at that time In Mexico City,
Director General of UNESCO, Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow of Senegal, opened
the conference by leading the charge against Western media and
cultural products. He said there was great cultural potential in
modern media technology, including cable-TV, video-discs, and
video-cassettes. But, he added, the general trend" in films,
records, radio, and television continues to be t owards mass
production and consump tion and increasingly uniform products.

Within UNESCO, M'Bow's seemingly vague keynote statement has It
mirrors the mounting spiral of anti-capital- precise meaning ist,
anti-free market resolutions and rhetoric'at UNESCO culture
conferences and in UNESCO publications dating back to at least 19

70. Opposed to the free market, free enterprise, and the proved
concepts of supply and demand, UNESCO and the M'Bow Secre tariat
are committed to a centrally planned socialist economic model, not
only for individual nations but for the entire world.

In fact, since the rnid-l970s, a crescendo of demands has been
building for the so-called New World Cultural Order (NWCO).

The NWCO is yet another political strategy growing out of the "New
International Economic Order," a resolution passed by the U.N.
General Assembly in 19

74. The NIEO, is one of the most ambitious versions to date of
Fabian socialist theories. This utopian scheme extends to poor
nations the false hope that wealth can be taken from developed
industrial nations, like the U.S West Germany, and Japan, and
somehow redistributed to the advantage of the "have-nots" of
Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The well documented fact that the
developed nations achieved their high living standard through the
free enterprise system is completely ignored. Nor does the NIEO
address the reality of the rapid economic progress of those
developing countries of the so-called Third World who have adopted
a free market economy-Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia,
Kenya, Brazil, Ivory Coast, and Singapore. 3 UNESC O ls biased
socialist cultural policy has evolved steadi ly over the past
twelve years largely because of the efforts of the Soviet aligned
nations and the Group of 77 (so-called because of its origin as a
voting group of 77 socialist dominated develop ing n ations but now
numbering over 120). Because of the one-nation one-vote procedure
at UNESCO conferences, they have been able to institute their
socialist '"New World Cultural Order as the official UNESCO
cultural policy. This of course was particularly evi d ent at
Mondiacult '82 in Mexico City where the Itkey players in the game
of "cultural imperialismtt were unmistakably identifi able once and
for all. Cultural imperialism is the main component in these
players! NWCO attack on Western culture and cultural i ndustries.
Their ideology argues that Western culture lays waste to any other
native culture it contacts. Their'thesis appears under the cover of
such UNESCO-speak slogans as Ildemocratization of culture11 or
participation in culture As a part of the larg e r NIEO propaganda
war at UNESCO, such activities clearly do not fulfill UNESCO1s
stated mission: Itto collaborate in the work of advancing the
mutual understanding and knowledge of all peoples THE DEVELOPMEXT
OF UNESCO's CHIEF CULTURAL PROJECTS llCultureg l, of course, is
part of the acronym, UNESCO--the United Nations Education, Science
and Cultural Organization.

UNESCO1s wide ranging cultural mission for the 1980s boasts a
1981-1983 budget of nearly $59 million out of a total UNESCO budget
of over $1 billion In 1949, UNESCO's cultural budget was only
$653,823 and the total UNESCO budget just $8.5 million.

More than 40 percent of the current UNESCO culture budget goes for
the highly publicized star projects of the IIPreservation and
Presentation of the Cul tural and Natural Heritage" that range from
the restoration of famous monuments, such as Borobudur, the great
Buddhist lltemple mountain1I of Java or Angkor Wat in Cambodia to
constructing museums in Egypt, studies and research on cultural
heritage, and t he training of specialists in monument preservation
techniques.

Also written into the 1981-1983 UNESCO mandate for culture and
communication, however, are endorsements of the NIEO and its
socialist offspring, lithe New World Information and Communication
O rder," better known as simply the New World Information Order or
NWIO. And in fact, the $22 million segment of the culture budget
designated for communications helps to fund attempts by the UNESCO
Secretariat and radical members of UNESCO to promote NWIO p
roposals to license journalists and censor Western owned inter
national news and information services. These come under the guise
of such studies as one on the "right to communicate,Il which
translates from UNESCO-speak as the right to control Western new s
correspondents, especially those working within developing nations.
4 Another UNESCO culture program, budgeted at nearly $13 million
for the 1981-1983 triennium, is called llAppreciation and Respect
for Cultural Identity Underlying the studies of this pr o gram is
the bias of UNESCO, which regards the West, and parti cularly the
U.S., as a colonial aggressor. For the UNESCO Secre tariat under
M'Bow claims that colonialism and exploitation today take the form
0f.U.S. and Western domination of the internation al wire services,
television, radio, and the motion picture industry.

Export of these and other Western cultural products is portrayed as
cultural imperialism in UNESCO publications and at UNESCO's
international conferences and meetings of experts.

Under MIBOW, UNESCO is pushing Ifcultural developmenti1 in a way
that advocates a world welfare state supported by Western
industrialized countries. Projects like the 14 million "Parti
cipation in Cultural Life" illustrate the irony of this so-called
cultural d e velopment agenda. At least 65 percent of the funding
is provided by the U.S. and the Western nations, yet the study
focuses on.topics like IICultural Foundations of the New Interna
tional Economic Order." Not only are the U.S. and the West under
writing p rojects designed to undermine the West, but these
projects also exclude Western culture from the lllegitimatelf
development process. been deemed contaminating to developing
nations. This is the NIEO cultural philosophy of UNESCO.

UNESCO voting majority do not want Western cultural influences to
make contact with the people of the developing nations.

MlBow and his staff fear that, if the free market influences were
to touch the Third World, the idea of individual economic initia
tive inherent in Western soc iety and the accompanying ideas of
free speech, free press, the right to religion, and free assembly
would also eventually take hold ubiquitous NIEO is rooted in the
same state planned centralized theories of government that have
failed so miserably among its chief advocates, such as the USSR and
the Eastern bloc which originally proposed the NIE0,is now bailing
out its troubled socialist economy with free enterprise reforms Any
contact with Western culture and ideas somehow has 0 The motive
here is politi c al. UNESCO's Secretariat and the Perhaps The irony
here is that the Algeria Cultural Jarqon at UNESCO UNESCO's many
documents, publications, and conferences on culture have a common
vocabulary that muddies the real meaning of the UNESCO cultural
debate fo r the uninitiated. Essential UNESCO speak on the subject
of culture includes such terms as: Ildemocra all) in culture"; the
"right to culture"; and Ilcultural democracy.

Through use of these terms, all roughly equivalent in meaning and
purpose, the NIEO so cialist doctrine is subtly blended into the
fabric of all UNESCO discussions on culture. For instance, the term
Ifdemocratization of culturei1 is used to convey the idea that
culture, like the wealth of the Western industrialized nations must
be redistrib u ted to the masses. This redistribution concept is
the central force of the NIEO doctrine tization of culturell
Ilaccess to cultureIf Ifparticipation (of 5 Why does culture have
to be redistributed? Because it is hoarded by the I1elites,I1
according to UNE S CO1s cultural theorists the developing
countries, who, because of their Western education enjoy the plays,
novels, operas, and other cultural products that derive from the
Western tradition. According to UNESCO1s official documents, this
must be stopped. S imilarly the I1fragileIt native cultures of the
developing countries are considered to be in grave danger because
of the influence'of Western culture and entertainment. Especially
threatening, says UNESCO, are such popular Western forms of
entertainment a s movies and music de livered by the mass
communications media of radio, television and satellite technology
who are the elites? They are especially the educated classes of
What is UNESCOls solution to this supposed threat of tlcultu ral
elitismi1 and West e rn culture? According to numerous UNESCO
publications and conference resolutions, the solution is a highly
centralized matrix for state controlled cultural planning other
words, the way to Ilprotectll the masses from 'Icontamination'l by
Western culture i s for the state to determine in advance the kind
of culture to be allowed in a developing nation. What MIBOW
apparently seeks is creation of an elite of cultural commissars
dictating to their fellow countrymen what can and cannot be read or
viewed intent o f the U.N.Is founders In Surely such cultural
authoritarianisn was not the The New World Cultural Order and Its
Birth in Venice UNESCOls utopian theory of a '!New World Cultural
Order NWCO) is the cultural corollary of the New International
Economic Order and one of a series of Itnew orders" popularized at
UNESCO particularly since Director-General M'Bow came to office in
1974.

M'Bow has wholeheartedly embraced the NIEO as his theory of
ildevelopmentll for UNESCO. He has even set the goal of realizing
the N ew International Economic Order by the year 2000 At the
UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies in Mexico City,
several speakers.emphasized that the "democratization of culturett
had to be based on the Ildemocratization of society as a whole,
which m i ght require far-reaching changes in economic and social
relations.Il2 In other words, the NIEO must first be established
before the new cultural order could be born ordersi1 were formally
instituted at UNESCO under M'Bow in 1974, a I Even before the NIEO
a nd th; present spate of Itnew world See Final Report, UNESCO
Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies in Europe,
Helsinki, June 19-28, 1972, p. 57; Thinking Ahead: UNESCO and the
Challenges of Today and Tomorrow Paris: UNESCO 19771, p. 129 Proble
ms and Prospects," World Conference on Cultural Policies, Mexico
City, July 26-August 6, 1982 (UNESCO, June 21, 1982 p. 13.

UNESCO's first World Conference of Cultural Policies held in Venice
in 1970, the basic, socialist New World Cultural Order agenda
surfaced to become the model for future conference resolutions.

The Director-General of that time, Renk Maheu of France, affi rmed
"the right to culture in his addres This !'right derived from the
1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, guarantees a state
funded and directed cultural program for all. The 1948 Declaration
further guarantees the social welfare state econo m y to the entire
citizenry of a nation. The U.N. treaty, based on the Declaration
long has been opposed by the U.S. and has not been ratified by the
Senate. The NIEO of 1974 also embodies the state welfare society
concept from the 1948 Declaration. These n o tions are reinforced
by the concept of "lifelong education," also endorsed at the 1970
Venice conference. Lifelong education is meant to serve, as it does
in the socialist countries today, as a state controlled institution
for con tinuing political reeduc ation of the populace to accept
the NIEO and the other aims of an international, centrally planned
e~onomy controlled cultural policy planning were made in the Venice
Conference Resolutions #12-

17. This policy has been tied to international funding throug h the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and other international
aid agencies. There was as well a call for a UNESCO Cultural
Development Bank to be run like the international banks.5 lending
facilities, this resolution was intended to give UNESCO an
uncontrolled source of funding outside the U.N. budget At The
all-important recommendations for centralized, government By tying
UNESCO to international.

The Regional Cultural Policy Conferences: 1972-1981 Between the
Venice and Mexico City conferences on cultural policy, a series of
"regional1' cultural conferences has been held. The European
regional meeting took place in Helsinki in 19

72. There the ground for the NIEO was broken by reaffirming the
ideas of !'the right to culture and !'cultural democracy the latter
to be implemented through lifelong education.'I6 At the same time,
cultural "elitism1t was condemned.

The scene shifted to Asia for the regional conference of 1973 at
Jakarta, Indonesia. Lifelong education was again affirmed Final
Report, UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference on Institutional
Administrative and Financial Aspects of Cultural Policies, Venice,
August 24 (Paris: UNESCO, September 2, 1970), Appendix 11, p. 43.

Final Report, UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural
Policies in Europe, Helinski, June 19-28, 1972 (Paris: UNESCO
1972), pp. 22 and 28 Ibid p. 57 I 7 and recommended as the
preferred way to Itrestructure" national educational systems ism"
conveyed through the mass media was raised, and there was a
recommendation to protect national cultures against Wulgar
mass-produced culture.Il8 Once again, the only solution offered fo
r cultural development was a centrally controlled, state'cultural
policy for each nation In fact, Recommendation #1 at,this
conference called for legislating a legal "right to culture.Il
Culture then would be defined and administrated by the state for
the m asses The issue of Westernized Vultural imperial The next
UNESCO regional cultural conference was held in Accra, Ghana, in
1975 The African delegates emphasized Itcultural identity" as Itan
act of 1iberation.Il The conference debated at some length the ev i
ls of Western cultural imperialism, especially mass media
Ilimperialism, and recommended a high degree of govern ment
involvement in formulating cultural policy, including a state
cultural policy for radio and television. One recommenda tion
warned agains t subversion of African national culture by Western
direct broadcast, satellite (DBS) p.rogramming.g But for all the
anti-Western rhetoric there were substantial requests for cultural
funding from the World Bank and the United Nations Development
Program, both largely supported by Western industrial ized
countries.

At UNESCO1s Latin American regional conference on cultural policies
in Bogota, Colombia, in 1978, most of the anti-Western talk was
aimed at the media. Recommendation 2 lashed out at cultural lta
dulteration.ll rlncorporating cultural golicy into state "central
planning systemsi1 was emphasi2ed.l And there was a strong
recommendation to create government controlled mass media
institutions to qlbalancell private sector communications.ll
I1Balancing 1l here refers to counteracting the alleged threat from
U.S. and Western European TV, movies, and other cultural products.

Again, the delegates asked for large amounts of funding from the
World Bank, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and several
L atin American development banks, all of which depend heavily on
the U.S. and its Western allies for their loan capital. M'Bow set
the tone for this conference with his own reference to llcultu ral
alienation,Il which he'said was induced by Western mass me d ia.12
Final Report, UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural
Policies in Asia, Jakarta, December 10-19 1973, Recommendation #Z,
Paragraph I, Item 111 Ibid Recommendation f14 Report, UNESCO
Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies in Latin A merica
and the Carribean, Bogota, January 10-20, 1978 (Paris UNESCO,
1978), Recommendation i.15, p. 35 lo l1 Ibid p. 43 l2 -9 Ibid' p.
72. a Arab cultural ministers met in Baghdad for a 1981 regional
cultural conference organized by ALESCO, the Arab natio ns' counter
part of UNESCO. The Arabs also endorsed the "right to culture and
its implementation via highly centralized cultural policy planning.

From the results and the rhetoric of the UNESCO cultural
conferences held since Venice in 1970, a definite pol itical
strategy has emerged among the developing nations of Asia, Africa
and Latin America. All attack alleged Western cultural imperial
ism, and yet all ask for substantial Western aid money to build
their own cultural and communications infrastructures. A certain
bargaining logic can be seen here. First the "hard line" and the
tough talk is directed at the Western industrialized states, such
as the recent threats to censor or cut off the access of interna
tional news services to developing nations. Then the soft approach
is used.

Information Order, It the Itcompromise1l reached between the
Western powers and the developing nations was the creation of the
Interna tional Program for the Development of Communications
(IPDC), a UNESCO bureau to funnel money a nd communications
technology and know-how to the developing countries. Though the
IPDC has only about $900,000 in development funds so far, the
organization has been created as a bargaining chip in the larger
NIEO ideological war. The anti-Western forces a t UNESCO can be
expected to "raise the ante" of threats against Western
news/communications media and Western !'cultural industries The
purpose: to shake loose more Western capital for IPDC and for other
agencies they may try to create at UNESCO and elsew h ere in the
U.N. arena. Indeed, the voting majority at UNESCO seems bent on
NIEO wealth redistribution schemes while ignoring free market
approaches to development For example, in the UNESCO debate over a
"New World HOW THE "CULTURAL IMPERIALISM GAMF, WAS P LAYED AT
MEXICO CITY Because of the time spent on noncultural issues at the
Mexico City Cultural Policy Conference-such as the debates over
Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the Falkland Islands crisis, and the
rights of migratory workers-cultural imperialism never took center
stage in Mexico City.

Conference nonetheless passed several resolutions meant to be the
seeds for future cultural imperialism battles. Even after I'sani
tizing" amendments forced by an uncharacteristically to ugh U.S
delegation, a resolution drafted by Cuba still was able to'convey
the message that Western mass media endanger native ~u1tures.l The
Cuban resolution provides for studies on the llimpactlt of Western
cultural products delivered by telecommunicatio n s, includ ing
satellite, into developing nations. Both Cuba and the Soviets
called for more funding of IPDC, the symbol of the New World Infor
mation Order war against the West Key anti-Western players at the
l3 Allen Weinstein, Vice Chairman of U.S. Dele g ation to UNESCO
World Confer ence on Cultural Policies, Mexico City, 1982, draft of
article .on Mexico Conference for World Press Freedom Committee
(Reston, Va WPFC p. 5. 9 Algeria, backed by France, Zimbabwe,
Nicaragua, and several African nations includ i ng,Zaire, Zambia,
and Guinea, submitted a resolution on Ilcultural industries.Il It
endorsed NWIO and the Itdemocratization of cultureit (the
UNESCO-speak attack on Western Ilcultural elitism called for a
UNESCO study on the Itimpact of cultural industrie s on developing
countries,Il and suggested that the IPDC set up tisubregional" and
national cultural industries in developing nations. Using the IPDC
as a llmiddlemanlt at UNESCO is yet another example of the
socialist governmentsf strategy of funneling mo ney and technology
to developing countries and to themselves without ever exposing
their populations to direct business or cultural relations with the
Western capitalist nations.

The Soviets submitted a resolution called "The Role of the Mass
Media in the Development of Contemporary Culture It too paid homage
to the IPDC and endorsed the NWIO--two important propaganda points
for the socialists. In addition it called for a wide range of
studies covering satellite broadcasting and its effect on native
cultur e s, a study on the NWIO in general, and a study on the
influence of mass media on culture. these questions may seem
harmless, but are hardly so in view of the NIEO bias of the UNESCO
Secretariat and of the mainly leftist scholars that the UNESCO
cultural h ierarchy usually assigns to them Studies on Examples of
this leftist bias abound in UNESCO literature.

Before the Mexico City Mondiacult '82, for instance, UNESCOts
monthly magazine, Courier, ran a special issue on IIPeoples and
Cultures.Il Seven of its ei ght articles are unmistakably biased in
favor of NIEO socialismfs centrally planned, state controlled media
and culture. Of these seven, three are openly Marxist in ideology;
one is pro-Maoist. That adds up to a UNESCO magazine distributed in
158 member c o untries with the official UNESCO seal 65 percent
financed with Western money, and yet nearly 90 percent socialist,
Marxist, and Maoist in political content. The lead article by
Director-General MfBow contains passages similar to the
anti-American speech g iven by French cultural minister Jack Lang
later that month in Mexico City.

UNESCO hired French culture consultant Claude Fabrizio to write a
preparatory paper for the Mexico City conference, which was later
incorporated into the official UNESCO pre-confer ence brochure,
ItProblems and Prospects. The report backs the NIEO plan for Third
World development to the hilt It never considers the free market
system as a viable alternative and fully endorses centralized,
state controlled cultural planning and traces this kind of planning
to its origins in the socialist nations. It I l4 Claude Fabrizio
Attempt to Analyze the World Cultural Problems and Out line the
Prospect for World Cultural Development Preparatory Paper for
Mondiacult '82, Mexico City UNESCO documen t #CC-81/615/Ref. 10
does not mention that these nations suppress the works of their own
artists, who dare to criticize the socialist economy or communist
society. Fabrizio also is featured in a recent UNESCO book called
Cultiral Development In this volume , Fabrizio and four other
authors all describe some Some Regional Experiences phase of the
NIEO as indispensable for cultural development.

UNESCO publishes a series of paperbacks entitled: Cultures In the
volume called IICultural Values:- The Cultural Dime nsion of
Development,Il only three out of eleven articles are not radically
socialist and based on the NIEO deal with academic or technical
aspects of art and sociology.

Likewise in the Cultures volume entitled IICulture and Communicad
tion," five out of nine articles endorse the Fabian socialist NIEO
authors in support of their theses. The other four articles are not
political aspects of cultural policy and the development of the
poor nations is the alternative Western approach to culture and
communicati o ns represented The three nonpoliticized articles Two
of these five are clearly Marxist and quote Marxist In neither of
these volumes on controversial Even further back in UNESCO
publication history is a 1974 study called: IITelevision Traffic-A
One Way St r eet It presen ted the argument that Western TV
exported more shows than it imported. This study subsequently
became a major reference work for 'the future New World Information
Order theorists at UNESCO It completely neglects to mention that
Western telev i sion programs are generally higher quality products
than those produced in the socialist countries or the Third World..
Nor does it mention the factor of state censorship and the denial
of free speech and free press as key elements in the low quality TV
e n tertainment in many of these non-Western c.ountries. Finally,
one of the two authors of the study, Kaarle Nordenstreng, is the
President of the Inter national Organization of Journalists, an
organization closely aligned with the editorial policies of Mosc
ow. And so it goes.

There is no attempt whatsoever to accommodate pro-Western write-rs
or nonsocialist views in UNESCO publications To what avail is it
for the free nations of the West to finance 65 percent of UNESCOIS
worldwide publicity operation, when t hat operation mainly serves
socialism and consistently attacks free enterprise. The Soviets
also revealed part of their future agenda for culture and communi
cations at UNESCO by calling for Ilcareful preparationst1 .for a
scheduled 1983 UNESCO meeting-po s sibly in Moscow-on implementing
the NWIO. Allen Weinstein, Vice-chairman of the U.S. delegation to
the Mexico City Conference, noted that the G-77 voting bloc at
UNESCO, was forced at the Mexico City conference to "defer until
later [UNESCO] conferences a full-fledged assault upon the free
media I l5 Cultural Development: Some Regional Experiences, (Paris
UNESCO Press 1981 16 Ibid p. 8 11 Amongl'the likely opportunities
for such an assault next year may be a meeting scheduled for June
1983 in Grenada, Spai n sponsored by UNESCO and some of its
nongovernmental organizations.

Entitled 'ICommunications for Democracy,I it features agenda items
like "advertising and democratization.Il This could well develop
into a Group of 77 strategy to control Western-especial ly U.S
media advertising in developing nations or even to take a share of
Western profits earned through advertising exported to poor
countries'.

Also scheduled for 1983 is a world conference on allocating the
earth's orbital slots for communications sate llites. This meeting,
called the World Administrative Radio Conference '83 will be held
in Geneva and sponsored by the U.N.Is International
Telecommunications Union ITU It is the satellite phase of the NIEO
battle countries-are expected to demand many sat e llite slots even
though they lack satellite technology. This debate is closely tied
to the UNESCO debate over the proposed regulation of program
content in transborder satellite communications Developing
nations-especially the radical G-77 There were also Mexico City
resolutions, in the tradition of previous conferences, calling for
more centralization of government cultural policy-making bodies and
more World Bank and international lending agency funding for
cultural programs and industries in the develop i ng world.
Translated, this means increased U.S. and Western funding for
UNESCO's anti-Western activities How did the U.S. fare at the
Mexico City Conference? By comparison to the socialists and
communists, very poorly. One important American sponsored res o
lution on the freedom of religion as a cultural right was passed.
But an American resolution declaring 'Ifreedom of media as a basic
cultural right" was defeat ed in fact, it failed to attract even a
single co-sponsor, a typical illustration of the West E uropean
habit of bowing to Third World pressures at the U.N.

A particularly disturbing development in Mexico City was the
increasingly radical and anti-U.S. stance being taken by French
cultural minister Jack Lang, a long-time socialist and supporter of
Ca stro's Cuba. This has serious implications for UNESCO which is
headquartered in Paris and where the French left wing has had a
tremendous political influence, especially during UNESCO's early
years in the 195Os.l7 According to Judson Gooding, the U.S. cul
tural attach6 at the U.S. Mission to UNESCO in Paris, Cuba may well
play a key role in a world cultural conference, the Etats Gen6raux
de la Culture Mondiale, planned by France for 19

83. Considering the attacks against the U.S., Great Britain,
Israel, Western culture business and media at the Mexico City
UNESCO conference, a l7 Gulick, op. cit p. 4 12 French Etats
Ghdraux on culture could become a political free for-all.

NATO defense policy and the nuclear freeze issue as well as Western
news and communic ations media including satellite communi cations.
French President Francois Mitterand has asked for UNESCO1s support
of the Etats GGnQraux, a political gesture likely to be realized in
view of the socialist kinship of the MlBow Secretariat at UNESCO
and t h e Mitterand government of France Likely targets of the
leftist governmmts would be THE FAILURE OF THE U.S. TO FIGHT BACK
AT UNESCO Although the attack on U.S. culture at UNESCO is of long
standing, the United States rarely has fought back against the barr
a ge of socialist, Marxist, and NIEO assaults. Rather, as at Mexico
City, the U.S. strategy has been "damage contro1,Il that is,
limiting or minimizing the political damage inflicted on the U.S.
by hostile resolutions such as that by Cuba on IICulture and t he
Control of Information.11 And in fact, the damage was limited in
this and other resolutions when the U.S. delegation was able to
excise the most offensive language from these documents.

But there was no response to Jack Lang's all-but-frontal attack on
U.S It financial and intellectual imperialism.11 American
Ambassador to UNESCO Jean Gerard said in her address to the
conference in reference to the attacks of Lang and others, III have
no intention of responding to cr'iticism at this time why not?

American freedoms and free society. Nor was there any real response
at the U.S. press conference following Gerard's nonre sponse. If
U.S. and Western values are not strongly asserted at UNESCO, then
socialism, the NIEO, and the tyranny of the closed socie t y--as in
the Soviet Union, mainland China, and Tanzania win by default. The
record shows that this has been happening during at least the last
twelve years of debate on culture and communications in the UNESCO
forum But The timing was perfect for a respon se and a defense of
Time after time, the.American representatives at UNESCO have
caved'in to the assault of the radical NIEO political strategy of
the G-

77. The New World Information Order debate, for instance is a major
tactic in the G-77 war on Western free enterprise.

But it is also closely tied to the entire New World Cultural Order
debate. NWIO supporters seek to control the Western media delivery
systems and services--the wire services, their journal ists, their
telexes, telephone systems, etc. NWCO , on the other hand, aims at
the content of modern mass media--movies and TV shows, Western
music and entertainment on records, videotapes video-cassettes.
Even Western fashions have been attacked as cultural imperialism by
NWCO advocates.

The great war on Western media and cultural products began in
earnest at a 1975 UNESCO meeting in Paris on the mass media.

The events subsequent to that meeting are a perfect example of the
U.S. policy of "damage controlt1 at UNESCO. During the 1975 13
Paris meeting, a preparatory session for the 1976 General Confer
ence, all Western nations except Switzerland and Austria, walked
out during an attack against Israel led by Algeria. After the
walkout, the Soviets were able to force passage of a resolution
calling for stat e control of mass media. The West consequently
threw out this resolution at the 1976 UNESCO General Conference in
Nairobi and turned the mass media iss.ue back to UNESCOts
Director-General MtBow.

Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the MacBride Commission Report commiss ioned
by UNESCO to study international communication problems was ready.
Its recommendations included several measures designed to introduce
state control over the content of news media reports an
international Ilcode of ethicst1 for journalists; and an i n ter
national regulatory agency to monitor the l1protectionit of
journal- ists By the time of the 1980 UNESCO General Conference,
held in The U.S. delegation at Belgrade and its allies among the
Western nations again resorted to "damage controlll as these i
ssues were raised. Most of the resolutions aimed at state control
of the media and free press were not passed. However, many
anti-Western culture and anti-free press recommendations were
passed in the form of I1studies.It Typical of these was a UNESCO
stu d y to investigate Ifthe impact of advertising, particu- larly
on the content of messages and on the management of communi cation
media." The response to these studies by the chairman.of the U.S.
delegation, Robin Chandler Duke, was characteristically weak. She
did not reject the proposals for the studies, but merely labeled
them Itimpractical, unnecessary and counterproduc tive She stated
that the study on advertising would tfmove UNESCO in a highly
unhelpful direction Irl resolutions.antithetica1 to Wester n media
goals were then passed by the UNESCO majority at Belgrade
essentially without Western protest These and other The very idea
of proposing studies on subjects like the control of advertising
content and the I1protection1l (read licensing of journalis ts is
an NIEO strategy of the Group of 77 and the Soviet bloc. Typically,
the results of these biased studies are eventually released at
future UNESCO meetings and again come up for a vote.

Indeed, mass communications and Western cultural industries were
major topics at the UNESCO Extraordinary Session of the General
Conference November 23 to December 3, 1982, in Paris.

The Executive Council meeting of the International Program for the
Development of Communication (IPDC), on December 13-20, 1982
Surprising ly, the U.S. State Department appointed no professional
media experts from the private sector to the Extraordinary Session
a also in Paris, is another likely place for renewed debate l8
Proceedings, of the UNESCO General Conference, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
S e ptember 23 October 28, 1980, Vol. I11 of Records of the General
Confer ence, pp. 1353-1354. 14 The White House claimed to lack the
staff and funding adequate to have an experienced, well-prepared
team of experts in media education, culture and science on hand.

UNESCO: CULTURE AND CAPITALISM The anti-Western, anti-free
enterprise ideology of the "New International Economic Orderi1 is
so ingrained in UNESCOls cultural agenda that it may be
irreversible. And what is true for the cultural sector of UNESCO
appl ies as well to its education and social science programs.19
cultural debate is readily available in the draft of the UNESCO
Medium Term Plan for 1984-89 the funding for it were negotiated in
Paris during the Extraordi nary Session of the UNESCO General Co n
ference, November 23 through December 3 section called
Wncertainties and the Renewal of Values.Il In this section all
Western cultural products and industries are lumped together and
accused of circulating cultural '1stereotypes.1f20 Indeed,
lrstereotypes i1 is only the latest in the dictionary of UNESCO
cultural buzz words aimed at discrediting Western business and
multinational corporations, which stem from the New Interna tional
Economic Order doctrine, inspired by the socialist nations.

Unsurprisingly, the most strictly regulated cultural codes-true
llstereotypeslf--which characterize the culture and art of the
socialist nations, particularly the Eastern bloc, the Soviet Union,
and Red China, are not so cited by UNESCO. Many Russian and Eastern
European artists have defected to the West seeking the artistic
freedom offered by the Western nations. Few Western artists have
chosen to move to the USSR or Eastern Europe A kind of Itpreview of
coming attractionsi1 in the UNESCO The final form of this plan and
T he first part of the Medium Term.Plan contains a The first part
of the UNESCO Medium Term Plan goes on to say The very logic of
these [Western cultural] industries leads them to foster the
expansion of an 'escapist culture which presents to sight and hear
i ng acts that society does not allow.1121 industries are polluting
the countries of the "Third Worldll with standards and values
specific to certain industrialized societiesi1 i.e. the U.S. and
Western Europe These values include: a trend towards cutthroat
competition and rivalry and the frenzied pursuit of power or of
individualized status as represented by income, regardless of the
means by which such goals are reached. This trend is often
reinforced by certain aspects of modern educational systems and by
a number of economic, administrative and The passage continues by
stating that Western cultural l9 Gulick, op. cit 2o Draft 28 21
Ibid Medium Term Plan (1984-1989 UNESCO First Part 4 XC/4, p. 15
even political structures.22 This passage from the Medium Te rm
Plan makes plain how pervasive the attack on Western society is at
UNESCO of Western life are condemned from culture to education to
commerce to government.

There are many other disturbing sections in the 1984-1989 Medium
Term Plan communication and its cultural programming be
regulated;23 a Marxist-oriented critique of the production cycle of
cultural industries All aspects a suggestion that international
satellite since these industries subject art to the laws of
industrial production-higher productio n and turnover rates, the
needs for short-term amortization, cost factors and profit
margins-they have profoundly modified the conditions under which
creation takes place, under mining some of its forms and even in
some instances bringing about a deteriora tion in the economic and
social status of the artists.24 But no critique at all of artistic
repression in the socialist nations is to be found in the Medium
Term Plan.

The Medium Term Plan also refers to the Ilflowering of genuine
cultural democracy,Il sug gesting a kind of majority rule in
national culture to the exclusion of individual cultural freedom.25
This notion is confirmed elsewhere by the Assistant
Director-General for cultural affairs at UNESCO, Makaminan
Makagiansar of Indonesia who wrote in the UNESCO periodical
Cultures If cultural values are recognized as an essential
component of integrated development, if culture is not seen as the
prerogative of the privileged classes but a common heritage whose
democratization is bound up with economic gro w th and social
justice it seems necessary to place cultural policy in the wider
context of general national policy.26 Here again, at the highest
level of the UNESCO cultural sector hierarchy is the paternalistic,
socialist bias that the faceless lfrnassesl f must be protected
against the unnamed llelites, If who, upon closer examination, turn
out to be the educated middle 22 Ibid. 23 24 Ibid Paragraph 11034
25 Ibid Paragraph 11025. 26 Ibid Second Part XI. Culture and the
future, Paragraph 11030 Makaminan Mak agiansar Preservation and
Further Development of Cultural Values Cultures, Vol. VI, No. 1,
1979, p. 13. 16 and upper middle class-strata of Western and Third
World society.

And these masses must be protected, naturally, by a centralized
state run cultural agency that is part of socialist, centralized
planned economy.

Another UNESCO author, Felipe Herrera, former Chilean Minister of
Finance, former Executive Director of the International Monetary
Fund and former President of the Inter-American Bank for Develop
ment, gives another slant on the utility of a centralized culture
bureaucracy. His reasoning: culture must be state controlled and
centralized because that is yeferred by international, multina
tional lend ing institutions In any case, what is critical is that
Herrera joined in the chorus calling for repressive centrali zation
of culture.

Another highly placed UNESCO cultural official, Janusz Ziolkowski,
Director of the Division of Cultural Development in th e UNESCO
cultural sector, argues that Western free market economics is too
decadent to be the development model for the Third World--that the
pace of industrialized life produces "certain forms of stress1#
sometimes leading to violence and a Ilbreakdown o f the sense of
values.1128 This leads in turn, he says, to a Iffascination with
material wealth" which the corrupted desire to have without
expending any effort lr2 In the classic UNESCO work on culture,
Cultural Industries the foreword, written by the M'B o w
Secretariat staff states It is already ten years since UNESCO,
moving away from the view of culture as something spontaneous and
uncon ditioned, sought to give due recognition to the import ance
of analysis and critique of the nature, dimension and impa c t of
mass culture, all issues which large1 coincide with those'raised by
cultural industries 3iJ From a Western or American point of view,
it might well be said that this is where UNESCO went wrong in its
cultural policy when it moved away from culture "a s something
spontaneous and unconditioned.Il In so doing, UNESCO has obviously
chosen to politicize culture, thus snuffing the spark of life so
essential to genuine cultural creativity.

Cultural Industries is a caricature of UNESCO prejudice.

Only four of its seventeen authors are even slightly pro-Western.
The rest are decidedly leftist and NIEO-oriented. At the extreme
left wing are French coauthors Armand Mattelmart and Jeanne-Marie
27 Cultural Development: Some Regional Experiences, p. 88 28 29
Ibid 3 0 Janusz Ziolkowski, in Cultures, op. cit.,,p. 21 mural
Industries UNESCO, 1982 p. 12 A Challenge for the Future of Culture
(Paris: 17 Piemme, who speculate that the culture industries will
merge with their respective state governments to usher in a kind o
f Marxist Armageddon in which the goal is a Ilmultinationalization
of econo mies," a withering away of the nation-state and a global
culture.31 UNESCO studies, of course, are entitled to criticize and
even attack Western culture. What is unacceptable in an inter
national organization, however, is the obsessive double standard
denunciations of the West are okay, denunciations and critiques of
the Soviet bloc and the developing states are not.

CONCLUSION Given the deep and extensive penetration of UNESCO by t
he socialist cultural doctrine of the New International Economic
Order, the time has come for the U.S. and its Western allies to
Like its education sector UNESCO's cultural sector has worthwhile
programs. But the few good programs serve as a convenient co ver-up
for what UNESCO really is: a very large amphitheatre for
international political propaganda, as proved at the Mexico City
World Cultural Conference.

The ongoing drama in this theatre is controlled almost exclusively
by the opponents of the U.S. and the West. They have written all
the heroic lines for themselves as socialist champions of a I'New
International Economi'c Order The U.S. and its allies consis tently
are assigned roles as capitalist villains.

What is needed is a new script. The U.S. and t he West no longer
can afford mere "damage controltf at UNESCO. They need to discredit
the dangerous myths of the NIEO are well aware that these myths can
become reality only if U.S and the West acquiesce game or suffer
enormous losses to its credibility a s a world leader. This is
particularly true of the United States. fight back or get out of
UNESCO UNESCO players surely But the West must play the political
The U.S. must provide a powerful free enterprise alternative to the
NIEO-a kind of Freedom in Free Enterprise strategy for free market
development in the developing world, Once devised this plan should
be raised by the U.S. at every available UNESCO forum, particularly
the General Conference scheduled for Paris in 19

83. Whether a free enterprise development plan would win majority
backing at UNESCO is not the point, The battle itself would impress
and educate a number of key developing states.

Simultaneously, the U.S. must lobby UNESCO delegates one-on-one
with vigor, as do its anti-American opponents. In this regard the
U.S. and Western missions to UNESCO in Paris should work closely
with representatives of their respective private business and
entrepeneurial firms.

But a Western free market plan for development is not enough.

The U.S. and its allies also must fight the charges of Ilcultural
31 -9 Ibid p. 58. .18 I imperialismIt by stressing what is never
mentioned at UNESCO, the total denial of cultural and artistic
freedom in the USSR, Eastern Europe, Red China, and elsewhere in
the socialist and c o mmunist world. Much should be made of the
persecution of artists and political dissenters in these countries
religious minorities in the communist world should be exposed as
well The persecution of Finally, with 65 percent of UNESCO's budget
coming from W e stern funding sources-more than 25 percent o'f it
from the United States alone--the West must begin to use its
economic weapon to.stop the NIEO plan. Funds should be cut to
UNESCO programs advocating NIEO concepts, the New World Information
Order or the N e w World Culture Order. If these ideologies persist
and the UNESCO effort to curtail Western cultural indus tries and
mass communications businesses continues, all U.S funds to.UNESC0,
assessed and unassessed funds as well as U.S funding of UNESCO
through U nited Nations Development Program international lending
institutions, and regional banks, should be discontinued tion and
to the spread of culturell and to advance Ifthe mutual
understanding and knowledge of all peoples" is being completely
subverted by t h e M'Bow administration at UNESCO UNESCO has
concentrated on attacking the West for its wealth, its economic and
technological successes, and its social and cultural freedom ment
plan that has all but killed the once thriving cultures of Russia,
Eastern Eu r ope, and mainland China. This virulent anti Western
bias of UNESCO is, regrettably, becoming typical of the entire
United Nations UNESCO's mandate to !'give a fresh impulse to
popular educa Under M'Bow It has embraced in the NIEO a socialist
economic deve l op As in its education policy, UNESCO must excise
the socialist anti-Western propaganda from its cultural agenda or
lose its chief supporters, the citizens of the United States. For
their part, Americans and all free world citizens must refuse to
let thei r elected representatives at home and their diplomats
assigned to UNESCO continue the.game of "damage control They should
insist that a firm Western voice be heard at UNESCO exposing the
NIEO and the New World Cultural Order for what they are-an attack
on the freedoms of the Western world. If this voice is not.raised,
then the U.S. and the Western nations should pull their logs out of
the UNESCO fire and go home I' I I I i I I Thomas G. Gulick Policy
Analyst